The Stats-Only Thread

[HonusWagner]

I am starting this thread to discuss and generate ideas, theories, flaws/workarounds (from theory or experience) for the purpose of maximizing stats-only set up and play. Everything from how to set up an initial draft using just stats to settings and strategies for maximizing realism.

PLEASE NOTE:
`stats-only` refers to ABSOLUTELY NO use of player ratings. I dont wish to discuss stats-ratings hybrid setups.

ALSO PLEASE NOTE:
This thread is NOT for discussing the pro`s and con`s of stats-only, or stats v ratings.

Your cooperation with these limitations is appreciated.

[HonusWagner]

To get things started, here is a process Ive implemented for starting up a stats-only inaugural draft using feeder leagues. Feel free to comment if you see anything that needs improvement.

*****************************


How to set up league for stat-only play
(print, read through once before attempting to implement)


Introduction

Clearly the game is setup to provide immediate access to game play out of the box. To do this it employs ratings to provide the manager with a quick and easy scan to find player ability and make decisions. However, this is rather dull and unchallenging and takes away from the experience for those of us (few) that are interested in incorporating the mystical world of baseball statistics. The best way is to use stats-only, removing any and all reference to rating system. However, this creates a problem when wanting to start a league from scratch.

There are a few options: one, and perhaps the easiest, simply populate the league upon creation, not running a draft. However, if one wants to have complete control over one`s organization (and why not) then it is essential to have a draft. But how can you decide between different prospects when all ratings are off and there a no stats? If scouting is turned on then one may read through each individual text report on each player to figure out what is what. However, this would be tedious and dull and still would not be realistic due to lack of stats. What to do?

Introducing Feeder Leagues.

Feeder leagues are thus called because they and only they will act as player source for all minor and major leagues. They are not affiliated with any particular team like minor leagues. They are strictly feeders. An important issue concerning using feeder leagues is how to control the quality of the amateur draft (and thus the quality and realism of the entire universe). Too many feeder teams create an unrealistic surplus of all-star calibre players, while too few feeder teams has the opposite effect of requiring all prospects be made available to fulfill the requirements of the draft, thus creating too many low quality players. How to strike the balance? Control the number of feeder teams.

Each feeder team graduate approximately 6-7 (another range Ive heard is 5-9, my experience has been 7 or so, so 6-7 is a conservative estimate) players per year. From this one simply has to do some easy math. Since we are right now discussing how to set up the initial draft we will answer this question from this perspective. Later, below, we will discuss how to setup for maintaining quality and effecient amateur draft. Though this draft is technically an amateur draft we are using it as a inageuarl draft.

To continue.. since we can count on each feeder team providing 6-7 players per draft, we simply must find the number of players we require to populate the initial draft. For example, assuming a major league of 10 teams, each organization having 5 teams (ML, AAA, AA, A, Rookie), and each with a roster of at least 25 players, we see that each organization requires a minimum of 125 players, or, 1250 players for the entire universe. Thus, the initial draft would contain at least 125 rounds. 1250 divided by 7 = 178.

If you simmed 178 feeder teams for 4 years, each year would generate 1250 players. Thus, when you go run your initial draft, you would have 5000 players to fill 1250 positions! While obviously not realistic, it becomes problematic for the funtionality of the sim process, as maintaining that number of player database and output (ie constant creation/update of stats, scout rankings etc) can considerably slow down the number crunching. Therefore, the solution would be to divide the original number of teams required (178) by the number of years each provides graduates (4) to arrive at an approximation of required feeder teams (in this case, 45).

It is essential to do these calculations before simming for stat pool. They have a direct consequence on the quality of the leagues to follow. Of course, following the initial draft one may tweek the variables.



NOTE:
You may set up as many feeder leagues as you need, in any format. In this example, for realism, you may set up leagues containing
40 US highschool teams
20 US college teams
10 Canadian college teams
15 DR highschool teams
etc

or have two leagues of 50 teams. Whatever. As long as the total number of teams is what you need it doesnt matter the format of the league(s).


Now we are ready to move on with creating the actual data pool.



1. Set up, using wizard or advanced mode (recommended), leagues universe, complete with major, minor and feeder leagues.

NOTE: Feeder leagues may only be setup at the initial creation of the major league. If you attempt to add feeder leagues after the initial setup of major league the feeder leagues will not operate as proper feeder leagues but as minor leagues. Therefore, to ensure feeder leagues actually do feed your drafts with prospects you must install during initial setup of major league(s).

Before you click `start` to create leagues make sure you have added and modified all feeder leagues!



2. Make sure amateur draft is turned off during sim for stat pool. You will turn it back on before initial draft. There is no point slowing down the sim for drafts as all players in the leagues after the 4 year sim will be deleted before the initial draft.



3. Sim for 4 years.

NOTE: to help ease demands on cpu while simming all leagues, try to stagger league start times so as to create minimal overlap of leagues running simultaneously. For example, start college leagues in February, highschool leagues in September, short rookie leagues in June. If your leagues employ locations nearer the equator you may start those in January.



4. Upon completion of simming select Commissioner Mode and go to Major League > League Setup and select to release all players as free agents by clicking on Release All Player/Clear Rosters for major and minor leagues. This will not affect feeder leagues.

DO NOT CHANGE FEEDER LEAGUES!!!!! DO NOT CHANGE FEEDER LEAGUES!!!!! DO NOT CHANGE FEEDER LEAGUES!!!!!



5. In Commissioner Mode go to Major League > Free Agents. There you will see all players in universe outside of feeder leagues. Select Delete Free All Agents and delete all free agents.

NOTE: Be SURE you are in the Major league, NOT feeders!

Now, there should be no players in the major or minor league system. Thus all organizations will be setup to build from the draft, according to feeder league prospects.


6. As Commissioner in the major league, set amateur draft date.

NOTE: it is necessary to set the date for after March 1 AND during the off season. Otherwise you will get `illegal roster` errors when the game attempts to sim spring training without any players on the rosters.

The initial amateur draft will populuate your draft pool with sufficient number of prospects for the entire league`s organizations. When setting the draft date be sure to select the number of rounds to correspond with the required number of players you need to place. For example, if you have a 5 team organization (ie MLB, AAA, AA, A, Rookie) you will want a minimum of 125 players (5 teams x 25 players). Thus, for the initial draft, you will want at least 125 rounds. However, the game only allows max 100 rounds. You may select 100 rounds, select provide enough players for 125 rounds (this would give you 250 free agents for the first year), then, for Draft Feeding Mode, select Feeder Leagues and Additional Players. This will round out your draft.


7. Run draft.


8. Upon completion of the first amateur draft (which amounts to the inaugeral draft) you must adjust the feeder leagues to reflect their normal role as feeders. The first draft required the feeders to provide enough players to populate the entire universe. This of course is not their designed role. Their designed role is to merely provide enough prospects for each year`s amateur draft. Referring to the 5 team organization scenario we must first calculate how many players are required per draft. You may adjust this to your liking. Likely no less than 10 rounds will provide an organization with sufficient new talent to compensate for players moving up through, or falling from, the yearly cycle. For example, if one has a 5 team organization, then accounting for on average 3 permanent player movements per year from a team equals 15 new spots needing to be filled per year. Thus around 15-20 rounds should suffice for repopulating yearly cycles.

League-wise, this would demand (in a 10 team league) a minimum of 150-200 prospects per year from the feeder leagues. Since we have determined a feeder team averages 6-7 graduates per year, the original feeder league universe of 75 teams may be scaled down to 40-50 teams. This deflation of feeder teams will help ensure quality of realism within draft sample: too many feeder teams creates, over time, an unrealistic inflation of all-star prospects (the sheer quantity of prospects ensuring that only the best are selected for amateur draft); too few feeder teams conversely creates an unrealistic DEflation of quality players, as the small sample size ensure that ALL prospects are required for the amateur draft, even players with poor or no real playing history.

9. Attention must be paid to adjusting the quantity of feeder league teams accordingly when creating league and/or organizational expansion or contraction. Any increase or decrease of major and minor league teams will need to be reflected within the feeder leagues to maintain optimization of prospect quantity and quality. Not paying sufficient attention to issues concerning quantity can quickly bring a sim to a halt, as organizations are unable to populate sufficiently thus preventing games from being played due to an `illegal roster number` message. The workaround is to either populate all affected team by adding a player one-by-one or using the league options to populate the entire league with fictional players (that is, player not drafted).

NOTE:
If you decide to reduce the number of feeder teams be sure to reset the schedule after editing.

Also, make sure to monitor the amount of players available in the draft pool, particularly for the first year draft as you sim through the 1st four years. Getting too many players (ie 3000+ for a ten organization universe) may cause the pc to stall (hourglass). This happened to me and I am guess that was the reason.



Additional tips for maximizing stats only play


* Set scouts to normal or low.

You want to get into the habit of not relying solely on scouts and more on your own abilities. Thus creating a healthy dose of ambiguity in scouting reports provides that motivation. A normal scout setting may enable you to use scouting as a `last reference` after weighing other information. Low scout rating renders scouts largely unreliable and it may be just easier to turn scouting off (ie if your pc is experiencing hang time crunching numbers turning off scouts will eliminate processing power spent on updating scouting reports).

* Turn off managers, coaches.

Minor league managers and coaches always seem to mess up a lineup. If youre going to manage, manage.

* Set AI options to (I have to find out more about this. I think the current setup places too much emphasis on current year performances but then if scouting, coaching are turned off it may not matter)

* Set injury and fatigue ratings to high for each

Provides more realistic sim and deeper managing skills as you must watch the entire organization. For example, regarding fatigue, a poorly managed organization will lack sufficient balance, leading to constant fatigue for some players, who`s performance will suffer as a result.

* Stagger league schedules.

This was already mentioned earlier. However, staggering minor league schedules also enables you to manage more effectively. For example, if you have at least 4 or 5 minor league teams and they all start on the 1st of April, you will get completely bogged down and take a lot of time sorting through all the lineups. I tend to place the longer schedules starting earlier and work down from there. So, if plagued with injuries at the beginning of the year you may `borrow` players from your teams that havent started playing. This provides the added advantage of getting playing time for players you picked rather than jumping to signing free agents.



Final note:

You will likely notice this set up using stats only will s.l.o.w. down the simming experience. To manage, you will be required to delve much deeper into player performance rather than merely skimming colour-coded ratings. For example, drafts take on much more meaning as you are drafting not just for your MLB team but for the organization. Certainly, the first year or two require the most time as you sculpt your original organization. Playing a few years is necessary to see what youve got. Because of the necessary investment in time and effort to build your organization you will perhaps find you are more involved in every aspect of management. You may find little difference between deliberating over a MLB trade or whether to promote a player from rookie ball to A, or to release a player; both may have equal significance if you have put in the time to build a balanced organization. You will likely notice a wealthier decision-making process. For example, player-movement has a ripple effect that can have significant consequences on your organization, good or bad.

Anyway, Ive had to edit this a few times and have tried to remove any ambiguity in the setup process. Let me know if you have any questions.